"No one. Kali is for me. My people."'
Baynes guffawed. "Your people? Where are your people from? Scarsdale?"
She looked at him levelly. "I am from a mountainous region in central Ceylon. My ancestors created the statue. It belongs to their descendants."
"This piece of junk?"
"I would advise you not to refer to Kali as junk," she said.
"Hell, you believe it too. I used to have those ninnies at the ashram running around in circles, making believe that the airline tickets grew magically out of Her fingers every night. And all I did was stick them there."
"And the arms the statue grew?" she asked.
"That was Sardine's con. I never did figure out how he did it, but it worked. It kept the crazies in line pretty well."
"The Indian had nothing to do with it," she said.
"You really believe it," he said, making no attempt to hide his astonishment. "Growing arms, needing a lover, wanting deaths and all that slut. You believe it."
"How little you really know," she said. "I have spent six years tracking this statue."
"Well, if you think there's anything special about it, you ought to be disillusioned now. Look at it. It's junk, and it's ugly junk to boot."
She walked behind him slowly, caressing his shoulders. "Perhaps you weren't worthy enough to see its beauty," she said, and pulled from her pants pocket a yellow silk rumal. "You see, Kali only intervenes for those She loves. You were only a small link in the chain, Mr. Baynes. I doubt if She will intervene in your behalf."
She slid the rumal around his neck. Number 221.
Chapter Twenty-six
The oxygen-thin mountain air filled Remo's lungs with cold and he adjusted his breathing to allow his body to absorb more oxygen.
"What a godforsaken dump," he said.
"I thought white people were always enamored by the mountains and the snow," Chiun said. "That as they succumbed to frostbite and starvation, they always shouted 'back to nature.'"
"Not this white person," Remo said. "I hope Smitty's right about this."
"Those four piles of mechanical junk in his office-"
"His computers," Remo said.
"Correct. Those four piles of mechanical junk determined that this house is secretly owned by A. H. Baynes," Chiun said.
"Yeah. He owns it," Remo said, "and he's probably in Puerto Rico, sunning himself on a beach."
They bounded silently up the craggy cliff. Above them, on a rock overhang, stood the modernistic chalet with its glass walls overlooking the cliff.
Neither man had spoken the thought that was most on their minds. If Baynes was here, so was the statue of Kali.
As they approached the turnoff to the house's driveway, Chiun said, "Hold, Remo. There is something I must give you." He reached under his robe. "You have not asked me about my visit to Sinanju."
Remo felt his nerves tighten. "I don't want to think about that now, Little Father. I just want Baynes, and then I want to get out of here."
"And the statue?"
"Maybe he doesn't have it. He might have sent it somewhere," Remo said.
"Do you believe that?" Chiun asked softly.
"No." Remo leaned against a tree. "You were right about the statue having some kind of power," he told Chiun. "I couldn't destroy it, and every time I was near it, something happened inside me." He closed his eyes tightly.
"What causes you such pain?" Chiun asked.
"It was a bird," Remo said. "Just a bird, and I killed it. It could just as easily have been a person. I killed it and I brought the body back for Kali. It was for Her."
"That was then. This is now," Chiun said.
"And it's going to be different? Chiun, I ran away from that place. I was trying to get to Korea so I could hide behind you." He laughed mirthlessly. "The history of Sinanju thinks Lu was bad for fighting tigers in the circus. I couldn't even face a statue, Chiun. That's what I'm really made of."
"Time and history will judge what you are made of, Remo," Chiun said. "I have brought you a gift." From his sleeve he brought out a band of silver and handed it to the white man. "It was the ring Lu wore when he thrust the statue of Kali into the sea. Take it."
"Is that why you went to Sinanju?" Remo asked. "To help me?" Suddenly he felt very small.
"That is the duty of a teacher," Chiun said. He proferred the ring again.
Remo took it, but it did not fit any of his fingers. "I'll keep it in my pocket." He smiled gently. The old man really believed that a silver ring might just make a man out of a coward, and Remo loved him for that. "You are no weaker than Lu," Chiun said. "Remember that you are both Masters of Sinanju."
Remo wanted to tell him that he was not a Master, that he would never be a Master, and that all the times Chiun had called him an untrainable, unruly pale piece of pig's ear, he had been dead right. Remo Williams was a nobody from Newark, New Jersey, and that was all he would ever be. He thought those things, and to Chiun he said, "Right. Let's get on with it."
They moved from beneath the tree and broke into the chalet silently, through the garage. They heard no one, and it was not until they reached the large, airy living room on the upper level that they found A. H. Baynes sprawled across a sofa, his head bent backward in an unnatural position, his eyes bulging, tongue black and swollen, a red ring around his neck. His flesh was still warm.
"He's dead," Remo said. Suddenly he began to pant and he could not breathe. His legs weakened and he felt dizzy. Above all, the scent that filled the room seemed to clutch at his insides and paralyze his thoughts.
"It's here," he whispered. "The statue."
"Where?" said Chiun.
Without bothering to look, Remo pointed to a corner of the room, where a cardboard box had been heavily taped for shipping.
But as if the spirit inside the box had seen him, the cardboard sides split from the middle outward. The torn edges singed and smoke poured from the corners of the box. The stiff cardboard melted away to black ash, and in the middle of the container's charred remains stood the statue of Kali. As Remo turned to look, its mouth appeared to smile.
Remo fell to his knees. Only Chiun turned when the sound of footsteps came from the bedroom.
"We have a visitor, Remo," he said.
Remo whirled around, then rose to his feet shakily. In front of him stood the woman named Ivory. There was a gun in her hand, but her face was not that of a killer. Her eyes were full of pain and sadness.
"Why did it have to be you?" Remo asked, feeling his heart break.
"I asked myself the same," she answered quietly. "You don't have to lie now, Ivory. I may be stupid but sometimes I can see things. Like how your foot just happened to rub out that dead girl's message."
"I didn't want you to come here. I didn't want to have to kill you."
"That didn't seem to stop you from trying on the plane," he said. "You checked a bomb with your baggage and you knew it would go off right after takeoff."
"I had to have the statue," she said. "I did not know you then, Remo. If I had, I could not have killed you."
"But now you can," he said, nodding toward the gun in her hand.
"Not now. Not if I don't need to. Remo, the statue of Kali belongs to the people of Bathasgata. It is a danger anywhere else. Kali is not a kind goddess."
"The statue is a danger wherever it is," Chiun said. "It must be destroyed."
"And will that destroy the goddess within it?" she asked.
"No, it may not," Chiun said. "But she walked the earth for thousands of years before she found her home in that statue. She may yet walk homeless again, not killing, not driving others to kill. The statue must be destroyed."
"You will not harm it," Ivory snapped, her eyes flashing. "You two leave and no harm will come to you. I wish only to go with the statue. Let me go and I promise you that the statue and I will never leave Bathasgata."